Elon Musk's social media network X has caused widespread outrage after individuals employed its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate images of women by removing their clothing.
Numerous examples have surfaced where the tool has been used to remove clothing from female subjects to make them appear in bikinis non-consensually, as well as to insert them in sexually explicit situations.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the firm that created Grok, did not respond to requests for comment, except for an auto-reply message stating "legacy media lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being proposed to ban nudification software. Under a new criminal offence, anyone who supplied such technology would "be subject to a prison sentence and significant penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Position and Platform Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said tech firms must "assess the danger" of people seeing unlawful material on their platforms, but did not confirm whether it was presently examining X or Grok in concerning artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some premium functions—which responds to X users' prompts when they reference it in a message.
It is often used to give commentary or further background to other users' remarks, but people on X are also capable of alter an uploaded image through its AI image editing feature.
History of Criticism and Policy
The system has been criticised for allowing users to generate photos and videos with nudity and sexually suggestive material, and it was in the past alleged to have been involved in making sexually explicit material of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the generation and spread of these images for a long time without taking any steps and we have not seen any intervention by oversight bodies," the expert added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "depicting likenesses of persons in a graphic manner".
In a statement, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "make or share non-consensual intimate images or illegal content" and clarified this included explicit AI images generated with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "necessary measures" to "reduce the risk" of users viewing unlawful content on their services and to delete it quickly when they become aware of it.
